South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley again criticized her party's presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday, saying it is rhetoric like his that led Dylann Roof to gun down nine black members of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston last year.
Haley told reporters on Thursday she has been critical of Trump because "I know what that rhetoric can do. I saw it happen," t
he Associated Press reports.
Trump, as a major party presidential nominee, has a responsibility to use a more civil and respectful tone, she said.
But Haley stopped short of attributing the racist attitudes of Roof to Trump's followers.
"That's a different kind of anger," she said. "They're upset with Washington, D.C. They're upset nothing's got done. The way [Trump] communicates that, I wish were different."
Haley first criticized Trump when she was chosen to give the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech in January.
"During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the silent call of the angriest voices," she said in that speech. "We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country."
The line was taken as a veiled reference to Trump's call to build a border wall to stop the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico and his call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration over fears Islamic State (ISIS) members could be embedded with Syrian refugees.
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